Cooper S buyers be ware - check the faults and fixes forum

[Zulu]

To all potential Cooper S buyers - for your own sake check through the faults and fixes forum and be aware of the potentially unrepairable problems you are about to pay for.

Search on hiccup - yoyo - stumble and them you might like to search crack - windscreen.

It's a shame it is turning out this way - these cars had the potential to be something fantastic. Draw your own conclusions but I don't think these owners are making it up.

[gromit]

I'm as big a PITA to MINI when things go wrong as anyone but despite the probs I have had with my MCS since its delivery almost exactly one year ago, I still love the car.

Do you own a MINI or are you going on 'what you've read'?
If the latter, keep in mind that folks yell when things go wrong. When things go right they're too busy enjoying their cars to write.

[Zulu]

I own an MCS 3/03. Hiccup/stumble and yoyo from day 1.

The dealers service agent drove the car with 200 miles on the clock and said straight up "software problem - no fix available - may be a characteristic of the car if the next software upgrade does not fix it" - that was several versions ago.

These cars are Lemons. Your warranty is useless if there is no fix.

On top of that Mini/BMW USA "customer service - public relations" is - to put it mildly - a bad joke.

They takes your money and you will suffer.

[obehave]

I whine about the yo yo as much as the next guy but I think you're going off the deep end a bit with the "These cars are Lemons. Your warranty is useless if there is no fix." statement.
A '73 Vega was a Lemon. A Yugo was a Lemon. My S is not a Lemon.
I am NOT saying you don't have a legitimate problem. I am saying saying you're compromising your believeability by constantly soap boxing in all the forums here.

Are you being as vocal to MINIUSA?
I am. About once a month they get a firm, polite call where I express my displeasure with the one aspect of my car I find very detracting.

ALL of my other warranty work has been handled. Even my local service center has shown marked improvement lately.( Yippee!!)
So to say the warranty is worthless is, to me, a bit over the top.

Once again. You have a point. Your presentation just needs work

[cletus]

Quote:

Originally posted by Zulu
They takes your money and you will suffer.

Sufferance never felt so GOOD!

[Zulu]

Quote:

Originally posted by obehave
I whine about the yo yo as much as the next guy but I think you're going off the deep end a bit with the "These cars are Lemons. Your warranty is useless if there is no fix." statement.
A '73 Vega was a Lemon. A Yugo was a Lemon. My S is not a Lemon.
I am NOT saying you don't have a legitimate problem. I am saying saying you're compromising your believeability by constantly soap boxing in all the forums here.

Are you being as vocal to MINIUSA?
I am. About once a month they get a firm, polite call where I express my displeasure with the one aspect of my car I find very detracting.

ALL of my other warranty work has been handled. Even my local service center has shown marked improvement lately.( Yippee!!)
So to say the warranty is worthless is, to me, a bit over the top.

Once again. You have a point. Your presentation just needs work

I speak to the National Customer Relations Mini Executive on a regular basis and all he has offered are thinly veiled lies. Every time they have anything to say about the software they are caught out by their previous statements or another colleagues (chief mechanics statements) - case in point - chief mechanic says it has to do with meeting emissions - Customer relations exec says "it has nothing to do with emissions".

The local service manager drove my car with 200 miles on the clock - and as I've said before - recognized the problem straight up as "software" - now he refuses to even acknowledge he even drove my car - "customer service"??

Yes these cars could be great - BUT - due to these problems and the lack of culpability by Mini USA/ BMW NA "these are characteristics of the car" (that's their way of saying we can't fix it) the resale value will not hold.

BMW sold us these cars knowing they had problems - I believe that is illegal - express warranty - implied warranty.

If I can enlighten another potential owner of the problems before they spend their hard earned cash then all my "soap boxing" was not in vein.

[abstract]

I have a Cooper and as soon as I have enough spare coin anticipate upgrading to an S. At least I thought I was, and that it would be an upgrade. Now, you've given me cause for doubt. My Cooper rocks and has been problem free for 16 months.


What % of S's have this problem and how many of those have had this problem fixed?

Thank you.

[EBMCS03]

What??? ok ya there are minor problems... and I mean MINOR... dude i've experience the yo yo problem but still its not as bad as u sound... u make it sound like the car is crap and is worth ***** whats you're problem? Definetly not the car. cuz ummm we all have it and we're not acting *$^*&#$ like you.

[obehave]

Quote:

Originally posted by Zulu
I speak to the National Customer Relations Mini Executive on a regular basis and all he has offered are thinly veiled lies. Every time they have anything to say about the software they are caught out by their previous statements or another colleagues (chief mechanics statements) - case in point - chief mechanic says it has to do with meeting emissions - Customer relations exec says "it has nothing to do with emissions".

The local service manager drove my car with 200 miles on the clock - and as I've said before - recognized the problem straight up as "software" - now he refuses to even acknowledge he even drove my car - "customer service"??

Yes these cars could be great - BUT - due to these problems and the lack of culpability by Mini USA/ BMW NA "these are characteristics of the car" (that's their way of saying we can't fix it) the resale value will not hold.

BMW sold us these cars knowing they had problems - I believe that is illegal - express warranty - implied warranty.

If I can enlighten another potential owner of the problems before they spend their hard earned cash then all my "soap boxing" was not in vein.

Now THAT's more like it

But I do have to say that every car manufacturer has some skeletons in there closet. And they all continue to sell cars knowing there are defects.
Most just aren't as overt as our yo yo.
I used to work in the auto industry in QA so I can assure that's true.

[DavidR.]

Zulu,

I think what you and others fail to recognize is that they are plenty of us, me included, that do not have this problem and never did. There are also those that have just the mildest form of the stumble problem, not enough to effect normal driving. the Faults and Fixes forum is a great asset to the board, but only a very small percentage of the people that are members of this biard post problems there.

Most of the discussions go on about this problem or that, sometimes they get fixed sometimes not. Have you ever read any of the threads that deal with people that have no problems? Many, many people post that they are happy with their cars and are not experiencing any difficulties.

My opinion is that your post is very unfair. Go read the threads of other cars before you judge the Mini too harshly. Read the GTI, BMW, SUV, or any other car that has a forum. You will find problems there too. Do the problem cars represent the majority of the cars on the road, no. Do the problem Mini's represent the majority of the Mini's on the road, of course not. I think that there has to be a solution from BMW for those that have the problem. I believe that they will do it. SDcream, yell, curse, threaten if you have the problem. Definitley get them to do something. But don't go slandering the entire production run of the car because yours and some others are not up to spec.

This IS a fine automobile. The fit and finish, level of amenity, and power for its price range is hard to beat. I went through the exercise of reading all of the forums before I bought my Mini. What I found is that it has no more or less warts than any car out there, but it is light years ahead of any car I drove in utility and fun.

[Zulu]

Quote:

Originally posted by UCSDxB0i
What??? ok ya there are minor problems... and I mean MINOR... dude i've experience the yo yo problem but still its not as bad as u sound... u make it sound like the car is crap and is worth ***** whats you're problem? Definetly not the car. cuz ummm we all have it and we're not acting *$^*&#$ like you.

If you are happy with it that's fine - doesn't mean I have to be - MINOR problems don't make you cautious when pulling out into traffic just in case the car decides to have a major hiccup as soon as you pull out. This is extremely dangerous and should not be made light of. Several others have posted about this exact same problem in this forum.

My problem is I spent $27,000 on a car that does NOT perform the way it should ... and BMW are eluding to the effect that although they would like to fix it it may be a characteristic of the car.

[Zulu]

Quote:

Originally posted by DavidR.
Zulu,

I think what you and others fail to recognize is that they are plenty of us, me included, that do not have this problem and never did. There are also those that have just the mildest form of the stumble problem, not enough to effect normal driving. the Faults and Fixes forum is a great asset to the board, but only a very small percentage of the people that are members of this biard post problems there.

Most of the discussions go on about this problem or that, sometimes they get fixed sometimes not. Have you ever read any of the threads that deal with people that have no problems? Many, many people post that they are happy with their cars and are not experiencing any difficulties.

My opinion is that your post is very unfair. Go read the threads of other cars before you judge the Mini too harshly. Read the GTI, BMW, SUV, or any other car that has a forum. You will find problems there too. Do the problem cars represent the majority of the cars on the road, no. Do the problem Mini's represent the majority of the Mini's on the road, of course not. I think that there has to be a solution from BMW for those that have the problem. I believe that they will do it. SDcream, yell, curse, threaten if you have the problem. Definitley get them to do something. But don't go slandering the entire production run of the car because yours and some others are not up to spec.

This IS a fine automobile. The fit and finish, level of amenity, and power for its price range is hard to beat. I went through the exercise of reading all of the forums before I bought my Mini. What I found is that it has no more or less warts than any car out there, but it is light years ahead of any car I drove in utility and fun.

The fact that there are Cooper Ss out there that work makes this problem all the worse. It's SOFTWARE. Mini have/had software that worked and have only gone backwards in their revisions.

I have been told by BMW/Mini USA that they have about 5% of Cooper S owners complaining of the hiccup and yoyos - so there are probably lots more happy with their little cult car warts and all and a lot more only taking it to the local service agent level. A month ago 5% was around 400 cars. We're talking about Cooper Ss here. I don't have a Cooper or a CVT so I can't speak for those cars.

Fit and finish are one thing - the fundamental operation of the motor is another. If the engine don't work properly the finish is worth nothing.

[moorlockx]

I'm glad I didn't believe the "naysayers" on these boards. I would have missed out on what is turning out to be one of the best cars I've ever owned!

You're spouting out like every car leaving the factory has these problems. You do seem to have a legitimate problem with your car (and I hope you can get it fixed), but don't even try to say all S's are have these problems. They don't! In fact, judging from the number of people complaining about it, compared to the number of people just on the forums (let alone all MINI owners), I'd say it was a fairly small percentage.

You also mentioned the windshield cracking problem. Has yours? Strangely, that seems to be going away, as I'm reading fewer posts about it now than even 3 months ago. You might also have mentioned the coolant bottle leak that plagued the early builds. Another problem that seems to be going away. If they can solve these problems, for the most part, why not eventually the yo-yo? It's all part of the teething process of a new car design.

[Zulu]

Quote:

Originally posted by moorlockx
I'm glad I didn't believe the "naysayers" on these boards. I would have missed out on what is turning out to be one of the best cars I've ever owned!

You're spouting out like every car leaving the factory has these problems. You do seem to have a legitimate problem with your car (and I hope you can get it fixed), but don't even try to say all S's are have these problems. They don't! In fact, judging from the number of people complaining about it, compared to the number of people just on the forums (let alone all MINI owners), I'd say it was a fairly small percentage.

You also mentioned the windshield cracking problem. Has yours? Strangely, that seems to be going away, as I'm reading fewer posts about it now than even 3 months ago. You might also have mentioned the coolant bottle leak that plagued the early builds. Another problem that seems to be going away. If they can solve these problems, for the most part, why not eventually the yo-yo? It's all part of the teething process of a new car design.

moorlockx,

Software is loaded into every car and as one of the BMW USA chief mechanics told me "all the Cooper Ss with the same software have these characteristics to some extent".

I hear a lot of people talking about forums and how the ones with problem complain. Let me tell you there are a lot of people out there that have no idea that these forums even exist/ or have net access that have these problems.

Coolant bottles are something easily fixed (although it took BMW several versions to get it right) So I place little importance on this issue.

No I have not had a broken windscreen however you may like to look at the latest thread on http://www.minicooperonline.com - seems like this may be more of a problem than you realize. BMW have even publicly acknowledged it - something they have not done with the hiccups and yoyos - even though they are loading it into all their current cars ECUs - People your software is adaptive and it will be worse in some cars than others - some have even reported they did not have the problem after 10,000 and then all of a sudden they have it.

[Zulu]

Quote:

Originally posted by abstract
I have a Cooper and as soon as I have enough spare coin anticipate upgrading to an S. At least I thought I was, and that it would be an upgrade. Now, you've given me cause for doubt. My Cooper rocks and has been problem free for 16 months.


What % of S's have this problem and how many of those have had this problem fixed?

Thank you.

I asked BMW how many Cooper Ss with these characteristics had been fixed - there was no answer. Draw your own conclusions on that one.

See my other post for the answer to your other question.

I wish I visited these forums before I purchased the car - at least I would have been aware of what was going on.

I took it for granted BMW would produce a great product - they almost did.